Previsão oficial é descartada por especialistas, que sustentam que expansão chinesa, puxada por estímulo oficial e crédito bancário, deve ser de até 9%

Cláudia Trevisan, PEQUIM – O Estado SP

O ritmo de expansão da economia chinesa vai acelerar para 8,5% no terceiro trimestre, segundo previsão divulgada ontem pelo Centro de Informação do Estado, organismo de pesquisas da Comissão Nacional de Reforma e Desenvolvimento, o equivalente local do Ministério do Planejamento.

Depois de atingir 6,1% nos primeiros três meses do ano, o índice subiu para 7,9% no trimestre seguinte, em relação a igual período do ano passado. A expansão se deu sob impulso do pacote de estímulo de US$ 584 bilhões anunciado pelo governo em novembro e da espetacular expansão no crédito bancário – mais de US$ 1 trilhão nos primeiros sete meses do ano.

Antes mesmo de a previsão oficial para o terceiro trimestre ser divulgada, alguns analistas já haviam revisto para cima suas projeções de crescimento O Citibank espera agora expansão de 8,7%, enquanto o Goldman Sachs aposta em 9,4%.

A meta de 8% fixada pelo governo para 2009 parece cada vez mais conservadora. São raros os analistas que esperam índices inferiores e as previsões para 2010 são ainda mais positivas. O Morgan Stanley prevê 9% de expansão em 2009 e 10% no próximo ano.

Sob o impacto da crise global, o crescimento chinês desacelerou de 13% em 2007 para 9% no ano passado. A economia atingiu o fundo do poço no fim de 2008, mas reagiu a partir do segundo trimestre de 2009, graças ao pesado estímulo oficial.

As evidências de que a política expansionista do primeiro semestre chegou ao fim provocaram quedas na Bolsa de Xangai no início da semana passada, mas os investidores recuperaram o entusiasmo nos dois últimos dias de pregão, quando as ações se valorizaram 6,21%.

Os financiamentos bancários caíram de US$ 220,6 bilhões em junho para US$ 52,4 bilhões no mês seguinte. A previsão dos analistas é que o volume de novos créditos gire em torno US$ 65 bilhões ao mês até o fim do ano, patamar mais próximo do registrado em 2008.

A agência de notícias Bloomberg afirmou ontem que as autoridades chinesas vão impor aos bancos mudanças contábeis que, na prática, reduzirão a quantidade de recursos disponíveis para empréstimos.

Mas ninguém espera um aperto drástico da política monetária e a maioria dos analistas prefere falar em “acomodação” e “ajuste”. Nas previsões divulgadas ontem, o Centro de Informação do Estado ressaltou que a política monetária deverá continuar frouxa no segundo semestre, já que os preços estão em queda e não há risco de inflação.

Mesmo com a expectativa de menor liquidez, os analistas do Morgan Stanley esperam que a Bolsa de Xangai mantenha trajetória de alta e chegue ao patamar de 4.000 pontos dentro de 12 meses, o que significaria valorização de pouco mais de 30% em relação aos níveis atuais.

A Standard & Poors também espera recuperação do mercado, ainda que não descarte queda adicional de 5% para realização de lucros, depois da forte alta registrada até julho. A agência acredita que o índice da Bolsa de Xangai poderá estar em 3.300 pontos no fim do ano.

O Morgan Stanley afirma que a oferta de recursos para especulação com ações vai diminuir, mas ressalta que haverá liquidez suficiente para financiar o crescimento da economia e a operação das empresas.

Além disso, os analistas do banco sustentam que o lucro das companhias está em trajetória de recuperação. O lucro operacional de 706 empresas que divulgaram resultados aumentou 50% no segundo trimestre deste ano ante o primeiro, diz relatório do Morgan Stanley.

By Ruchir Sharma | NEWSWEEK

The current global economic crisis has been traumatic enough to throw many countries into a deep funk. But in Brazil, life is still a beach. No, it’s not as if Brazil is completely unaffected by the worldwide collapse in economic growth. After expanding at an average of nearly 4 percent over the past five years, the Brazilian economy is set to slow to a crawl in 2009. Capital flows are shrinking and credit is harder to come by in the country as well. But given its long history of crises, Brazil’s reaction to the current shock is more along the lines of “we have seen this movie before”—and its past experience has seasoned the nation to weather such storms. There’s also a sense of relief that the latest episode is centered around a global growth meltdown and is not homegrown in nature.

This mood is perhaps best reflected in a record-high approval rating for President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. With an 80 percent rating, he must be the most popular leader in the world, and he has achieved this in part by assigning all blame for the sudden stop in the country’s growth to developments in the United States while continuing to capitalize on the five years of unprecedented stability he has presided over. But another reason for the divergent reaction in Brazil compared with many emerging markets in Eastern Europe and Asia is the country’s main policy objective this decade of seeking stability above all else, rather than the “growth at any cost” mantra in several other emerging markets.

Brazil had good reason for doing so. Since 1980, the country has typically suffered some sort of crisis every five years. The last one was in 2002-03, when markets feared Brazil might cave under its huge debt burden. Since then, it has made remarkable progress in reducing its dollar debt, building up a large war chest of foreign exchange and anchoring inflationary expectations. Brasília’s policy initiatives—including targeting a low inflation rate and increasing spending on social programs—were also guided by this desire to achieve stability. Result: an annual growth rate of 2 percent in the 1980s and ’90s, and nearly 4 percent during the global boom period stretching from 2003 to 2007—but still well short of the average 7 percent growth across the developing world during the same period.
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While the importance of stability in fostering sustainable growth cannot be underestimated, it’s safe to say that it would have been difficult for Brazil to achieve any of its objectives without the support of the roaring bull market in commodities. Therein lies the key to Brazil’s growth. Commodities such as iron ore and soybean make up 55 percent of Brazil’s exports. And even though exports, at 15 percent of GDP, form a not-too-large share of the economy, evidence from the past few decades shows that Brazil’s growth rate has oscillated around an average 2 percent, and variations from that trend are largely explained by commodity price swings.

Commodity prices have indeed fallen sharply over the past few months but remain well above the average levels of the past two decades, thereby providing the economy with some cushion. Furthermore, since Brazil never recorded the gangbuster growth rates of other commodity exporters such as Russia and parts of the Middle East, it finds itself better able to cope with the present dire external funding environment. Brazil does not have a significant amount of debt to roll over this year. To fund growth, Brazilian companies did not leverage their balance sheets as aggressively as other companies did during the liquidity boom of the past few years.

In effect, the Brazilian economy has managed to move to a lower-volatility regime, whereby it will be able to avoid the boom-bust cycles of the past—especially compared with other major commodity-exporting nations—after long being considered the soft underbelly of the emerging-markets world. But the low ambition on the growth front also implies that it will be a very long time before Brazil can break out of its middle-class existence. That means that the country’s policymakers can no longer be content with just achieving stability. They will now have to think more in terms of how to put the country on a faster growth track.

Brazil’s productivity growth over the past two decades has averaged an abysmal 1.5 percent, as businesses have been stifled by a prohibitive tax structure. The government has been compelled to maintain high taxes to fund its huge spending, which, at 37 percent of GDP, is extremely high for a developing country. And for all the work done toward promoting stability, little has been done in the way of structural reforms, such as reducing the inordinately large share of taxes in the economy or amending cumbersome labor laws. These changes are required to fully unleash the entrepreneurial energy in the country and boost Brazil’s long-term economic growth trajectory.

Brazil must then stop soaking in the glory of its last victory, get off the beach and work toward moving higher on the development plane. Otherwise, the country’s growth profile will remain relatively unimpressive and vulnerable to commodity price swings. And if commodity prices fall further, even Brazil’s much-heralded stability could come under threat.

Sharma is head of emerging markets at Morgan Stanley Investment Management.